


Some and Now None of You

by ohhstark



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Slow Burn, So much angst, Spoilers, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, i don't specifically ever use pronouns for ryder in this fic, i mean the game's been out for almost a month...but just in case, prepare for the following, which is totally intentional
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2018-10-19 05:51:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 3,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10633569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohhstark/pseuds/ohhstark
Summary: You’re fractured.Broken.Your bones picked clean.Hair thrown over one shoulder.This is the story of how you died.





	1. Chapter 1

You are a bright and shining thing. A friend and savior with a heart of stardust. You are beautiful. 

But no one ever said that beautiful meant happy. 

***

You lost your mother years and you’d made peace with that. She will never tuck your unruly, curly hair behind your ears again or laugh at your jokes or tell you she loves you. You will never hear her voice again, never feel her arms around you, never see the way her eyes light up when she gets an idea in her head impossible to shake. 

You lost your father, too. You were never close, but God damn do you miss him. You never realized how much you learned from him until he was gone. His thirst for adventure. His determination. His smile. You miss him. And you can never forget that he should be standing here instead of you. He should be looking for clues on the lost Arks. He should be settling outposts for the Nexus. He should be wading through the blood, shit, and tears of this new world. It should be him, but you are not your father. Long ago, you might have relished that fact, but now? Now, it leaves something so empty inside of you that you wonder if you’ll ever feel anything at all around the black hole of your heart. You are not your father and once it felt like a blessing. 

Now it just feels like the worst sort of curse. 

***

In the beginning, you go to the Hyperion every chance you get. With your chest tight and your skin crawling.

You clutch at your twin and try not to cry. There are always people. 

Why are there _always_ people? Watching, waiting, expecting. 

Here, as everywhere, you are the Pathfinder whether you asked for the job or not. You cannot cry. You will not cry. All you allow yourself is a single, ragged breath that catches on the broken corners of your heart and then….

“I can’t do this,” you whisper and it’s the most honest you’ve been with anyone since you woke up. And that is all you get. One moment of weakness. One single, searing moment to steel yourself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is along the same lines of a lot of my other fics as far as style. But I love the whole disjointed snapshots thing, so I'm trying it out. The chapters are probably going to be short given that that's what I'm going for. Plus, this is my first Mass Effect fic, so I'm super freaking nervous about it. But hopefully, some of you enjoy it. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also, this fic is largely influenced by the song "The Night We Met" by Lord Huron. I'd known about it before, but after hearing it when I watched Thirteen Reasons Why, it just really gutted me. So, yeah....here we go.


	2. Chapter 2

After that, you harden. You tear through Eos and the kett and the Vaults like they’re nothing. Like _you_ are nothing. Your legs burn and your mouth feels twisted and wrong and your hands are shaking, but you don’t stop. You can’t stop. Because stopping leaves space to think and you can’t have that. So you smile and the lies feel like shattered glass in your mouth. Because you’re not okay, because you’re not the hero they think you are, because you are a liar. 

And the worst part, the very worst part, is that you’re just waiting and hoping and wishing that someone would call you out on your bullshit. No one does. Your smiles last too long and you haven’t slept properly in days, but there’s things bigger than any of you out there and it’s enough to know that you’re there when it counts. 

Except when you’re not. Especially when you’re not.

None of them trust you yet. You’ve made an outpost on Eos, sure, but it’s one world. One world when the Initiative promised them an entire galaxy. They’re all looking at you and the weight of that responsibility is enough to bow your back, enough to make you doubt everything. 

Cora and Drack look at you like you’re not at all what they were expecting, hoping for, a Pathfinder to be. Can you blame them? You say all the wrong things because the words get twisted in your throat. Do the wrong things because your hands move too fast, too slow, or not at all. You duck when you should weave. 

Then there’s Liam. He’s so upbeat and full of optimism and it almost makes you sick to see his smile and feel his hand on your shoulder. You don’t deserve it - that hope in his eyes. You don’t deserve his unending kindness. 

Vetra and Peebee are probably the easiest to be around. Peebee doesn’t trust you, but she doesn’t trust anyone so it’s hard to feel insulted around her. And Vetra’s the epitome of professionalism. She’s made her goal very clear. She’s here to work. 

So are you.

***

You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t. 

But it’s here in your lap. Cradled in your hands like water racing in the cracks of your palms. 

Responsibility you never asked for, never wanted. 

But it’s here and you were never one to quit anything. You’re stubborn as your old man and God help you, but you’ll see this through to the end even if it kills you.

They look at you and you feel the dais rising below your feet. You’re not a person anymore. You’re a figure on a pedestal and you know better than anyone. Figures can be toppled as easily as they are built.

***

Pathfinder. 

_Pathfinder._

The title sticks like glue to your fingers. You hate it. You hate that you’ve become this. Wading through politics and fixing people’s problems. 

You hate it because it scares the shit out of you. You’re not used to people looking to you, depending on you. And it’s too much like trailing after your dad like a toddler on weak knees.

He wouldn’t have done that, you think, he wouldn’t have said that. But it doesn’t matter now does it? Alec Ryder isn’t the Pathfinder anymore. 

You are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay...so maybe not as nonlinear as I'd hoped to be. Apparently my mind isn't capable of it. Yet. So I'll try it next update. :)
> 
> I've got finals next week, so the next update probably won't be until next Friday. Maybe that's the day I'll try to consistently update? Who knows. *shrug emoji*
> 
> Thanks so much for all the kudos!


	3. Chapter 3

“Hell of a shot, kid,” Drack says and you still feel the echo of the burn inside of you. Reyes Vidal. The Charlatan. 

It seems obvious now. 

But you can still feel the searing light of his lips on yours and his hand in your hair. The bump of his nose into yours and the blunt edge of his teeth on your skin. It was pretend. It is pretend.

This is what happens when you fall.

“I didn’t take him down,” you say. 

What you mean is.

_I couldn’t._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really, really love Reyes. But in my first playthrough, I definitely shot him. Sorry this chapter is so short, but the next one will be out later today, I promise!


	4. Thunderclap

You can’t believe you were so ignorant. So stupid. And now they’re all in danger. The people you’ve collected around you like piecemeal armor. This ragtag group of explorers that you’ve grown to love in the short space of time that you’ve known them. 

There’s fear. Oh yes. And righteous anger blooming bright inside your chest. It tastes like ash and blood and the beginnings of the end in the back of your throat, but if there’s one thing you’re good at it in this forsaken shit storm of a galaxy, it’s this. Hurtling through space. Throwing yourself at enemies known and unknown. 

And maybe _that’s_ why your dad chose you. Because he knew. Even before you did, probably. 

Because it’s true, you have no sense of self-preservation, but you’ll be damned if you traveled 600 light years just to have your friends, your _family_ , killed by some asshole with a God complex. 

So you use that anger, harness it, forge it into a weapon that might stem the tide of darkness sweeping towards your hobbled legs.

“You can’t just take a ship full of people just because you feel like it. Who do you think you are?” 

“Enough!” he says, his voice raising the hairs on the back of your neck as much as the fact that he’s dead behind the eyes. “Your defiance is naive and reckless. This day marks the beginning of your greatness.” 

Something barbed and razor-sharp lances through your chest as his images fades. Replaced by something dark and terrible taking rooting inside of you.


	5. Chapter 5

It doesn’t get any easier. The whole dying and coming back to life thing. 

Your body wrenches upward. Filled with dark fire and unending cold. Pulled together again by sheer spite. You drag and drag and drag air into your lungs and it’s not enough. You feel...erratic. 

“Ryder -,” SAM starts. Your eyes shutter and your breath steels in your chest. 

“I’m okay,” you say and that buzzing in your veins pulses. Hums in acquiescence. You’re no longer frozen in place, but you are _held_. You can still feel the Archon’s claws gripped tight around your throat. Caught in your hair. You can still feel the needle plunged into your shoulder. Can almost feel the tracker still inside you. 

And maybe the Archon didn’t just put something inside of you. Maybe he took something too.

He’s touched you. 

You’ll never be safe again. 

Behind you, you can feel Jaal’s eyes on you. Can feel the weight of his stare like a physical thing settling on your skin. You never told him. You died and you never told him. 

It’s enough to pull you from yourself.

You scan the area. You find the console and you break the stasis field. Cora moves. Giving you space, though you’re not sure why. 

You feel Jaal move up behind you. He doesn’t touch you and you’re not sure you could handle it if he did. Still, you feel the stretch and burn of space between you. Your breath catches and your skin feels too hot too tight. He hovers so close. The buzzing in your ears gets louder but it’s not SAM this time. 

Oh.

“Ryder, you may lie to SAM, but you cannot lie to me,” he says. Your name in his mouth. His eyes as bright as the stars. There’s nothing like it. Nothing like _him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much to everyone who's been commenting and sending kudos. I can't believe the support for this little story of mine. And a special thank you to [unfolded](http://archiveofourown.org/users/unfolded/pseuds/unfolded) who has left me the best comments and who actually writes one of my favorite Jaal/Ryder fics called "a series of small attentions" which I recommend you all go read! 
> 
> So yeah that's it for now. Now that school's done for the semester, I'm hoping to be a lot more active on here. Hopefully. I've got a ton of material for this story in particular and who knows maybe I'll be able to start another story soon. :)


	6. Chapter 6

You’re thinking of metaphors. Of Icarus and the sun. Reaching out to touch his face, to feel the rough patches of your fingertips threaded across his soft, pink skin, and you wonder which you are. 

Icarus? Maybe, you think, as you feel that heat creeping low in your belly. Maybe, you think, as he smiles and touches the back of your hand in turn. 

The sun? Maybe, you think, as you touch the edges of his new battle scar. Maybe, you think, as you pull away and imagine that he pulls with you. Chasing the warmth of your fingers.

Either way, you’re done in.


	7. Chapter 7

You miss him - your dad. 

He was never the things you’d always been taught dads should be. He worked long hours. Was gone for months at a time. And when he was at home, it was like he couldn’t wait to get back out there again. Like he couldn’t wait to run from his own family at the first chance he could. 

But there were other times when it was so glaringly obvious that he cared, maybe too much. Times when he waited a moment too long to disconnect a vidcall. Times when he held you a little too tight. Times when the words tripped from his mouth and betrayed him in the best way possible. And it fucking hurts because maybe he wasn’t the perfect husband or father, but he was your dad. 

And you miss him. But only sometimes. When the Tempest is quiet and everyone else has gone to sleep. When you touched down on Havarl for the first time. When you look out at the stars and wonder if he and mom might be looking back. 

So much about this new life of yours is unfair. But the most unfair thing is this. 

That you miss him when, by all rights, you shouldn’t. 

***

“Do you miss it?” he asks. You don’t look over your shoulder. You can’t look at him. But you feel him looking at you and it burns bright enough to make you grit your teeth. 

These things are dangerous. You always liked to play with fire, but this is different. This is an inferno waiting to ignite inside of you. 

“No, I don’t,” you say, because it’s the only truth you have. The Milky Way, the home you knew, isn’t there anymore. Even if you could go back, you wouldn’t want to. You didn’t find yourself until the toes of your boots touched down on Habitat 7. Or flipped ass over head as the case may have been. 

“Why?” he asks. You turn now, your chin tucked into your shoulder and your eyes fluttering with the rapid pulse of your heart as you finally look at him. He’s bent over that Kett rifle of his with his tongue in cheek. Face set in focus.

“Because,” you say, following that tell-tale swell of your heart. “You’re here.” 

He looks up and the words break between you like the best worst-kept secret in the cosmos. You turn as heat rises along the length of your neck and up into your cheeks. 

Neither of you speak again for a long time.

***

Vetra is there too, but she wisely scoots off somewhere to give you and Drack space to talk. Not that there’s any true privacy among you, but you appreciate the gesture. Still, you can’t seem to look away from the spot where he stood. Where you shot a bullet into him and he didn’t fall. 

You don’t know how you could have been so stupid, but then you were never any good at being honest with yourself. Let alone the rest of the world. Family trait you suppose and that bright hot flicker of regret is lodged so deep in your chest that it’s a wonder you can breathe around it. 

“Kid, I know this is tough, but you need to snap out of it,” Drack says, breaking the silence between you with as much delicacy as he can manage. Your hands convulse. Fingers wrapping around themselves into strained fists. God, but you need to punch something right now. It might be time to go hit Eos again. There’s still Kett there that you haven’t ground to dust yet. Or that huge remnant worm thing that you need to deal with.

“Ryder,” Drack says. And there’s impatience there now. But that isn’t what gets your attention, and he knows it. He’s never used your name before. Not once in all the months you’ve known him. 

“Look, can’t I just wallow in this for a while, Drack? Do I always have to be so stoic and put together? I mean, shit, I’m just a person,” you say. You kind of want to punch yourself now for the words. They ring hollow and fall so flat you’re not sure you want an answer at all. 

“I’m good with a tantrum now and again, but you can’t afford it. You know that. You’re a Pathfinder; even if you didn’t ask for the job, it’s yours. There are thousands of people up on the Nexus counting on you to not let this get personal,” Drack says, his voice gruff and his hand heavy on your shoulder. “I know you liked him, but letting him break you is exactly what he would want. So prove him wrong, kid. Prove them all wrong.” 

You mull the words over. You know he’s right. Of course he’s right. Still, the sting of Reyes’ betrayal burns under your skin. So you encase it in armor. Tuck it away with a promise of later. 

“You know, old man, it’s time like these when I really miss the Milky Way.” It surprises a laugh out of him that makes something warm bloom inside of you. 

“No you don’t, kid,” he replies with a smile and knowing eyes.

“Well someone had to say it.”

“I know, kid. I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love Drack so much and I love his relationship with Ryder. And as far as daddy Ryder, I will forever feel cheated out of the limited response we get out of him dying from Ryder, so here we are. 
> 
> Thanks for the continued kudos and comments and bookmarks. You guys have no idea how much it means to me that you're enjoying this story! <3 <3


	8. Chapter 8

Your hands are shaking and you can’t get your legs to move. It’s gone, the Hyperion. He stole it away from you. 

Your heart is pounding and there’s a rushing in your ears like the static before the storm. 

Not just the Hyperion. Your other half. Your twin. 

“Ryder,” Jaal says. So soft you’re sure you imagined it. But then he’s there, his hand on your arm. 

Your heart in his hand. 

“Ryder, what’s wrong?” Jaal asks as Vetra crowds around you on your other side. You look into her face. Her mandibles are drawn tight and there’s something desperate, crazy, in her eyes. 

“It’s the Archon,” you say, your head ready to split open. Jaal’s hand tightens on you and you find yourself leaning. Or falling. You fight it. You fight the dying flicker of SAM in your head. You fight the darkness. “He’s in.”

And you finally give way. 

***

You’ll never forget it. That first moment you left the Citadel. That first moment you went out into the universe and touched something that wasn’t home. 

You were in awe. Struck silent by the sheer magnitude of the moment. That’s your problem, you guess. Always has been. That you feel things too much and it gets under your skin. Burrows there like it has any place inside your mind, inside your heart. It strikes words dead in your throat and makes it nearly impossible to breathe. It’s a moment in time, but it feels like forever. 

And you thought you’d left it behind. The panic attacks and the anxiety. Fresh starts and all that. 

You didn’t. It’s a new galaxy, but you’re not a new person. You’re the same Ryder you’ve always been. 

Except now, you’ve got the fate of tens of thousands on your back. 

And that makes all the difference. Right?

***

It’s not jealousy. Not exactly. But you still feel it. That hammer beating in your chest whenever Cora talks about your dad. And you hate yourself more and more every day for the irrational impulses that slam through you. To rip and pull and shove until there’s no mistaking who is really Alec Ryder’s child. 

You don’t rip. 

You don’t shove. 

You pull, but only in the ways that won’t shatter this delicate peace between you. You ask her about the Commando unit she served with. You ask her about the plants. You don’t shy away when she asks you if you miss home, because you don’t. Not really. Not in the way that she means it. 

Home was never the Citadel. Or Earth. So you shake your head, say no, and tell her your almost truth. 

“Andromeda is home now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for being so incredibly awesome! I know it's been a while since I last updated, but hopefully, this chapter makes up for it, being that it's a bit longer. <3 <3


	9. Chapter 9

You’re fractured. 

Broken. 

Your bones picked clean. 

Hair thrown over one shoulder. 

This is the story of how you die.

But first. 

You lean forward and it’s like meeting a storm. You close your eyes because it’s too much. And you learn with lips and teeth and jagged nails because it’s not enough.

You love him and it’s all you can do not to whisper it in the moment that he pulls away for a breath. To press it like secrets to his cheeks, the tops of his thighs, the back of his hand. It’s never been more obvious to you now with him standing between your legs and your hands held fast around his waist. 

Then he touches you. He touches your face with soft hands and there’s a deep rumble coursing out from the center of his chest that you can feel on your mouth. Right through to the solid rock foundation of you. 

Because you’re crying. With great gasps torn from your chest and shaking hands and you don’t know why. You love him. That should be a happy thing, a happy truth. But it can’t be because you’re the Pathfinder. You’re not a person anymore. You’re a leader. Honor bound and your one true love is and always should be The Initiative. 

“Ryder…,” he says and there’s nothing in that voice that you want to hear. Nothing waiting for you that you want to face. 

_Not like this._

Not like _this._

Tomorrow you could fall out of the Tempest and never make it back through. Tomorrow you could die and you’d never - he’d never. You stare up into his eyes made of stars and you want to curl up inside of him. Where it’s warm and safe and nothing can touch you. You want to lose yourself in him, but you know you can’t.

“Goddammit,” you say. You slam your fist against your thigh. It doesn’t help. You swing away from him. Away from his questing fingers and pink skin and eyes like the night sky. 

You pull away and you leave a piece of yourself with him. 

***

Liam is the worst of them. With that easy smile and his strong hand on your shoulder and the fucking loyalty. It burns through you. For reasons that turn your stomach and make your hands shake.

Because you don’t deserve it and you never will. 

***

That first night on the Tempest is the worst. It feels like you’ve been blown through. Like there isn’t enough oxygen on the ship to pull into your lungs. Like your skin is tight, burning from the inside out. Like you’re too big for your body. Or too small for it. 

You rage on the inside. You’re wrapped around the pillows and watching the stars race past as you tear through this new universe towards Eos. You’ll be there by morning, Kallo willing, and it’s enough to make you clench your fists. 

This should have been your dad. It would have been if he hadn’t saved you. And doesn’t that just punch a hole through you? Because you can count on your left hand the number of times he’d ever said he loved you. Because Alec Ryder was a lot of things, but a present father was never one of them. 

***

You’re lost from the start. Swept up in the largerthanlife persona, the charm, that smile. 

_You look like you’re waiting for someone._

And he’s right, isn’t he? You are. Only it isn't what you expect. It isn’t what he means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to point out that I haven't updated this story in over a year. 
> 
> I just got back into ME:A and wanted to finish up this fic so it's not just sitting in my works unfinished. Not sure where I'll end this, but just know that I fully intend on finishing it at some point. 
> 
> Would love to hear what you all think! Thanks for being so patient. <3 <3


End file.
